Improving livelihoods and decent work opportunities for Syrian refugees and host communities

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the livelihoods of Syrian refugees and host communities through improving employability and enhancing decent work opportunities in Sanliurfa and Kilis. One of the priority areas of the ILO is to provide decent work opportunities for both women and men. Accordingly, the ILO is conducting several projects on elimination of child labour, promotion of equal rights for women, occupational health and safety and provision of integration for Syrian refugees into the labour market to this end. As is known, Syrian people living in the socio-economically undeveloped provinces are mostly working informally in precarious works. Syrians are largely un-skilled or low skilled and do not speak Turkish cannot easily access formal labour markets, they are inevitably being pushed into the informal economy. This creates a fertile ground for labour exploitation and abuse that influences informal and formal labour markets alike, driving working conditions downwards and making tensions worse in host communities. Regarding to legal context; only Syrian citizens are provided with temporary protection. All rights and obligations relating to the temporary protection regime, including the right to apply for a work permit, have been determined with the Regulation on Temporary Protection, published in the Official Gazette of October 22, 2014, by the Council of Ministers. The Regulation also defines in detail how foreigners falling under the scope of the Regulation provided with services such as health, education, social assistance and social services, translation and interpreting and similar services. The principles and procedures governing the application process of the work permits must be determined with a Decree of the Council of Ministers (MoLSS submitted the decree proposal to the Council of Ministers). Without having the referred decree on work permits of Council of Ministers it is not possible for Syrian refugees to take place in formal economy. Syrians under temporary protection are able to access some courses and programmes, which have been enabled through amendments made in the Regulation on Active Labour Market Services. Thus, the purpose of this project will be to promote the employability of vulnerable groups in decent working conditions by enhancing their vocational and individual skills on the labour market. Furthermore, the ILO is the only UN agency having a tripartite structure promotes the social dialogue among government, employer, and worker representatives and targets to carry out social works and projects considering the tripartite constituents. In this project, it is also aimed to build a tripartite structure (consensus) among all social partners in conducting the activities to promote the employability for both Syrian refugees and host communities. Project will be implemented in Sanliurfa and Kilis which are the Southeastern Anatolia cities hosting most of the refugees living in tents in Turkey. The project targets vulnerable population at all. A distinction will be made between the beneficiaries on the basis of the services that they are expected to receive. On the basis of the needs of the target group some would be provided with vocational and technical trainings, some of them would be provided with skills development trainings and the rest with entrepreneurship training.

Project symbol

TUR/15/02/USA

Admin unit

ILO-Ankara

Start date

29/09/2015

End date

29/09/2016

Total allocation

500000

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

440027

Development Partners

USA, Department of State

Country/Countries

Türkiye

Outcomes

Promoting fair and effective labour migration policies